I want to get some people together for a big meeting. Just to show off our cars and talk about them. Is there anyone who is willing to help me set this up. I am hoping people from the Northwest will show up. I am from the Seattle WA area, So if you want to set something up please tell me cause I am going to try to post some flyers on every contour/mystique that I see. I will be making flyers and if their is anyone who wants to copy some, like $5.00 or 10.00 bucks worth of them and just stick them on every contour/mystique they see. It would be greatly appecaited.
Llane Rost
Drajen@attbi.com
aim: auioxix
cell: 253-217-6020
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This is a good thought, but what exactly is the point? Besides running around talking about cars what else would we do (not that I have a problem with BS'ing about cars all day)? Remember you have ages ranging from 16-60+ and families to add into the equation. You're off on the right foot since you are taking some initiative, as long as you can keep stuff organized and not have 12 people trying to do different things it may work.
If you plan on putting these flyers on every Contour out there, I think you'd be lucky to see 10% of those people at this meeting. I feel about 85%+ of people driving Contours use them as basic transportation. Out of the other 15% they have to be interested in cars to attend, probably bringing the number to around 5%. Take for instance our last meet up in Seattle, I believe we had 13 or so cars. 11 of those were SVT's. So lets do some math real fast, SVT's account for about 1% of the entire production of Contours and we managed 11, but out of the other 99% of Contours on the road we only managed 2.
I'm not against this idea in the least, but there has to be something more then "we are going to talk about cars" on the flyer to attract people. Now we can't and won't be able to please everyone obviously. A couple ideas that we have done that worked out well or should work out well are car shows, go-karting, scenic drive, or other forms of entertainment that 90% of people can enjoy.
I think some of us Portland people should get together and have some dinner or something one night.
I'm willing to BS and have a brewski with some local ceg types, in part over seeing how other's mods worked out or to talk about dealing with routine quirks (So if you left your SVT stock, how do you deal with the tire rubs over bumpstrips, or do you lose PS fluid, etc etc. I work in Portland and commute the Sunset.
Originally posted by PDXSVT:
...or do you lose PS fluid
HAHA...how about PS fluid and pumps! Come next week I'll be on my 3rd PS pump. I'm pretty sure my race tires are killing them (read high G's).
Well this is what I was thinking, some of the things based of your post and some others. We can all meet like portland oregan/washington or closer to seattle, which ever is worked out, and then do the scenic drive after we all meet and have like a barbeque somewhere where we can all sit around and talk, and as for the flyers, i was thinking about getting a large collection of How Too's that aren't easy to find or places where you can get it done locally for cheap, places where you can get lots of parts. Cause, I have to say, Nobody shares where they get all the good parts for their cars. I have found everything I have ever needed for my car except a bumper for a 98 that fits on a 95. Thats the only thing I haven't succesfully found. I am sure I can get 2 or 3 people I know in the area to show up, thats another 3 SVT, one black 2 Red, and maybe even 3 different contours. Everyone can bring their familys, and we can just go to a huge park and hang out. I know of a lot of big parks they would hold all of our cars, and I am sure we could just set up at the park and hang out, and then print some maps of a scenic drive, thats like 50-100 miles, or however long it is agreed upon.
BTW, the glass is never half empty its always half full. If you think we can only get 15 people tops, we will never do better. I think we could get 50+ cars, with over 100 people. I think that would be a good turn out. I sent Lance a PM, and am checking to see if he wants to help organize it and announce it to everyone. I am sure we can get the ball rolling. I am think about getting something set up for July/August next year, and start handing out flyers around feb march. I know I can hit atleast 200-300 cars. and only 1% show, that is still 20-30 cars. I am sure we can do 1%. If not better. We can add on the flyer, how to make your car run better/cheaper/live longer. Everyone wants to make their car run good, and cost less, and live longer. Don't you. I sure as hell do!
I'm starting to see where you're going with this and it sounds pretty good. On a side note you're math is a little off, 1% or 200- 300 is only 2-3 cars
. I have no problem with this being more of a Seattle thing, I'm more then willing to come up now and then and in return every once in a while we'd have to alternate between Ptown and B.C. (only fair). In the NW though I feel that Seattle has the most active members so the majority of meetings would take place there.
I'm not saying we can't get over 15 cars to show up either, what I am saying is that people that normally show up to these events are car enthusiasts. The percentage of people that are enthusiasts that drive SVT's is fairly high, whereas the percentage that drive non SVT's is really low. My point is that targeting the non SVT's is going to be a very hard process due to the fact that you're going to have to distribute a lot of flyers. Don't take this wrong, I'm all for getting as many Contours as possible to show up, I'm not some SVT elitist. Maybe looking into getting some Cougar guys and possibly Focus people to show up would allow more publicity to this whole thing.
Another thing is organization. I hope you realize how hard it is to organize a gathering like this. At even 15 cars the logistics are hard to manage. If you start having larger get togethers then say 30 cars you might run into some legal issues (state gathering laws, traffic problems, etc.). I'm waiting to hear some others ideas, this isn't impossible and a little more organization within the NW would definitely be welcome...you have to admit most of our G2G's aren't the most structured events ever, though that is half the fun.
man, i used to be good at math, [censored] oops. Okay well, first off, I am trying to get about 5 people to help organize. I am thinking we could do a nations meeting since the last one was in 2000. Hell why not? Atleast we would be a little more consistant. I have a friend at a Ford Dealer ship who could probably hand out Flyers for us with every focus he sells. I am sure it wouldn't be a problem. I know plenty of people with focus, I am sure they would love to show up. So, now that we have figured part of this out. What is it going to take to get the whole thing set up. I am going to work on a flyer tomorrow, and then lets pass it back and forth making some changes. Its going to be in MSWORD, but if you need it to be in any other format please tell me. Well, I am [censored] out of idea's we need some more people to think about idea's What normally goes on at the meetings. I haven't been to any so if you are anyone else reading this has been to one and can send me a list of events drajen@attbi.com or even post them here, it would be great.
Sounds cool to me. I'd help post flyers in the Portland/Vancouver area. We'd have to find a day when it wan't raining though, which could be hard. I know where at least 20 Contours are, and a quick cruise around would probably find tons more. Qbert is right, most are not going to come to the meet, but if there is a reference to contour.org on the flyer I'd bet at least half check it out. Maybe less, but so what, 5 new members is an improvment!
Here's a potentially naive question, begging for a "we tried that" response: Would Ford's Special Vehicle Team be willing to share/sell its CSVT registry information with a group like ceg or one of its branches, in which case direct mail to owners of CSVTs in the NW would be cheap and easy. Would FoMoCo want to encourage fans of its products to the point of making such info for a mailing list available?
Has another branch tried that?
Wouldn't those owners be the most likely to have interest?
So in the Pacific Northwest, today, how many CSVTs are there likely to be? 100? 500? 1000? How many of them are now registered here w/ SVT? Some owner info would be out of date too, but not all. I'd be willing to set up mailing of 100 or 200 fliers if SVT did not charge for its data. Is there a fat chance of that?
Granted this would not help much in looking for interested SE and GL owners, but it would be likely to get some response from more CSVT owners.
Well, we would probably want to see if Lance would do that since he is the main admin of the site. But, that would definently be a point of interest. I am sure would could try something like that. It couldn't hurt to ask, and you might see if we could get all contour/mystique addresses, not just svt models. If they so no to that, say hey, then how about the SE and SVT models? if no again, move to just SVT models. Start big, they will get anonyed and say yes to one of them. I was thinking august, but nationals are around their, and I don't want to do it in the next few months, cause i screwed the front of my car up. So Maybe april or march? What does everyone else think?
Pretty much gonna say the chance of that is a big NO. Ford already has its own SVT club: SVTOA (SVT Owners Association). They are not going to sell information to the CEG, especially since we have people on this site who work for Ford and have told us to make sure we have posted somewhere that we are in no way affiliated or endorsed by Ford Motor Company because they are known to go on a witch hunt. I doubt that in light of that and the fact that they already have their own club, they would be willing to give us that info...plus I think there would be some legal aspects not allowing it.
Unfortunately, a good portion of the people driving Contours are not car enthusiasts.
-Christy (Lance's wife)
I agree with Cristy's statement too. I think you're better off trying to win the Powerball lottery. With SVTOA in the picture, there is already an organization that is doing this.
I don't know about you guys, but I hate getting flyers and such on my car. I know that we (CEG) meen well by it, but I think a lot of people would be annoyed that we put it on their car, thinking we are just some car club. My personal opinion on this matter is we need to show up in numbers to car events around the NW. Get involved in the car enthusiast scene and I'm sure you'll draw some attention to the cars. The Mustang roundup that happens each year in Seattle would be the type of venue I think we should shoot for. They draw A LOT of people, they invite outside clubs (I believe FocalJet was there this year), and it would be a lot of fun wether we got new members or not.
The idea is to let people know that are interested that we are out there. We don't need to broadcast to the world. Car shows, race events, or other events where people can see what we are about, and who the club consists of. Having a piece of paper is one thing, but seeing that we are a bunch of Fast and Furious geeks is another.
True. 12 or so Contours in a shopping mall parking lot can even draw enough attention on a Saturday morning. Remember the cop? And the 'Stang GT idiot? We need to do that more often!
Kerry
Originally posted by Qbert:
Having a piece of paper is one thing, but seeing that we are a bunch of Fast and Furious geeks is another.
"are" is supposed to be [B]AREN'T[/B]
Man, what a typo!
Originally posted by kerrychin:
...Remember the cop? And the 'Stang GT idiot? We need to do that more often!.
ahh... what wonderful memories!!
I'm donw for whatever.
Guys, the lady is right (as women always are):
The majority of Tour owners are... probably not even aware of what make they drive, much less the model 
On the other hand, I think that there are a lot of owners liek us who yern for the good company of fellow car-crazed Contour owners. Flyers just might be enough to bring a decent few out of the woodwork, but would probably piss more people off than it is worth. Let's meet, and plan a fun-run through some cities and countryside. Maybe we can all get 'Contour' banners (magneticly attached of course). the aim would be to have some fun while making others DR 
L.
As always, I'm down for whatever... and I'll even put some money where my mouth is.
Originally posted by Sadeeq:
Originally posted by kerrychin:
...Remember the cop? And the 'Stang GT idiot? We need to do that more often!.
ahh... what wonderful memories!!
I'm donw for whatever.
Guys, the lady is right (as women always are):
The majority of Tour owners are... probably not even aware of what make they drive, much less the model
On the other hand, I think that there are a lot of owners liek us who yern for the good company of fellow car-crazed Contour owners. Flyers just might be enough to bring a decent few out of the woodwork, but would probably piss more people off than it is worth. Let's meet, and plan a fun-run through some cities and countryside. Maybe we can all get 'Contour' banners (magneticly attached of course). the aim would be to have some fun while making others DR L.
As always, I'm down for whatever... and I'll even put some money where my mouth is.
Alright glad to see some more people. I want to get atleast 10 cars together, so whoever is in for the meeting, email me at drajen@attbi.com?subject=I'm In!! then, once I have found 10 people we can all find a time when it would be good to meet. I am up for anywhere in the northwest you want to meet. I prefer near the water or a populated area. So that we may attract attention to our cars, furthering people to come look at them. Anyonw know where I can get some custome decals made? I want a huge CEG decal on the back, and some www.contour.org stickers on my back windows. I would also like to make some of these and anyone who doesn't have them, can pay me for them whent hey get to the meeting and then stick them on their cars.